Nippon Ishin expels rightwinger Nishimura over prostitute remark

OSAKA – Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) has expelled House of Representatives lawmaker Shingo Nishimura for making disparaging public remarks about the South Korean people, party Secretary General Ichiro Matsui said Monday.

The rightwinger had offered to leave the party after telling fellow lawmakers Friday that “There are swarms of South Korean prostitutes in Japan.”

The decision was made Saturday and conveyed to Nishimura on Monday, said Matsui, who is also the governor of Osaka Prefecture.

Matsui said he recommended that Nishimura also resign as a lawmaker and clear the way for his Lower House seat to be returned to the party.

Nishimura said he would make that decision on his own, Matsui said.

Party coleader and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has also come under international fire for defending Imperial Japan’s system of wartime military brothels.

Extreme-right party expels extreme right-winger for being too extreme. You just couldn’t make it up, could you?

KenjiAd

Hashimoto is good at taking a dual stance on critical issues so that he wouldn’t be proved entirely wrong either way. His current stance on the “Comfort women”, i.e., it was wrong but necessary, is a very good example of this.

In this instance, he maneuvered to create the appearance of an ideological gap between him and Nishimura whose view on “Comfort Women” is actually very close to his own.